Enriching later life through higher education: profiting from international experience

Social, technological, and environmental change presents Europeans of all ages with the need to engage in diverse forms of learning to survive, thrive and enhance their quality of life. Progressive reductions in state support for older people across Europe requires them to become more resilient and adaptable, and better able to care for themselves and one another. Diverse forms of learning can contribute to this, as well as being intrinsically valuable. Modern technology, the range of learning provision, and older people’s sustained motivation to learn all favour their engagement in this. Evidence from the UK shows significant changes in patterns of learning by older people, with increasing participation in more community-based provision, and on-line and independent learning, and substantial disengagement from higher education. In Spain, by contrast, extensive development of university level provision for older people has taken place. Combining subject expertise, an adapted pedagogy, and intergenerational learning opportunities, such programmes offer older people a distinctive experience, with evidence of significant benefit. In the UK very few universities have developed such programmes. However, a survey of older people in Nottingham indicates significant interest in such provision. Limited evidence of benefit and of expertise are barriers to its development in the UK. But both are available from countries such as Spain with greater experience of such provision. International transfer of these assets promises substantial benefits to older people and universities in many developed societies in Europe and elsewhere.